Tag Archives: beer

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Beer crawl… #2

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Heading south across the border into New Hampshire, we discovered a fabulous brewpub.

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Housed in an industrial complex, it had a funky urban vibe.

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The mural was awesome and took time to appreciate…

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So we grabbed a seat at the bar and checked the nicely varied tap list.

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Stone face doesn’t do flights per se, but you can order small pours to sample.

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Thoroughly enjoying their brews we chose a few full glasses and an order of their amazing garlic Parmesan wings.

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Tasty beer aside, I’d drive down just for these.

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There’s a large glass wall behind the bar that allows you to watch the brewery operation, but I was more taken with the fancy glass cleaner on the shelf.

The man cave could definitely use one of those.

😉

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Beer crawl… #1

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So much beer, so little time.

The husband and I like craft breweries and since our state seems to have one on every corner, we’ve made it our life’s work to try them all.

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This satellite location of the popular Definitive brand in Kittery left us a bit underwhelmed.

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And after doing a flight of four mediocre brews including a dishwater Helles and two strange milky sours…

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There wasn’t much to keep us from moving on.

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Atmosphere and a friendly bartender are important to my husband…

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Sadly this brewery had neither.

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Go west young River.

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On a bright and sunny afternoon, we headed west.

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To a small craft brewery called Ambition.

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To be honest I think it was misnamed. Not only was it small, but the barkeeper was more interested in talking with his friends than introducing new customers to his beer. We muddled along on our own, ordered and picked up our own flight…

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And were quite underwhelmed. The only brew that any flavor? Burned your throat too much to drink.

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With this many breweries in our state… we won’t be returning to the ambitionless Ambition.

Tasting complete, we headed across the street to a favorite restaurant.

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Housed in an old shoe factory with an original boiler door that fascinates my husband..

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Calzolaio Pasta Co. never disappoints.

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An apple cider mule with a garlic, chicken, broccoli Alfredo pizza on fresh basil dough for me.

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And a fabulous ravioli special for the husband.

Sautéed shallots & local Macintosh apples finished with baby spinach in a sherry & sage cream sauce over butternut squash & pumpkin filled ravioli.

All the flavors of fall right there!

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Pugs for the win.

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Having driven by this tiny brewery multiple times, the husband and I decided to drop in and try it the other day.

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It’s small, and colorful.

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Even their creative tasty beer is color coded…

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To the colorful flight tray.

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We spent a pleasant 2 hours sampling, drinking and chatting with the owners, a very nice young couple… who happen to live in our town.

They’re beer lovers and dog lovers.

Unfortunately the brewery’s mascot wasn’t there that day.

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But his picture was.

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And I came home with some fun pug inspired swag.

❤️

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The beer blahs.

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Another beautiful fall day, another scenic drive in the never ending search for good beer.

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North to Bangor.

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To the Bangor Beer Company.

Hidden behind the mall, in the back of a Chinese restaurant… it was an odd little place.

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With a line of old pinball machines and some quirky art.

The beer? Maybe we’re too picky… we try a lot of craft breweries and may set our standards too high… but we found this selection dishwater flat and not at all interesting.

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Elderflower grapefruit martini for me.

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We expected the sesame chicken appetizer to be better seeing that it came from the large Asian restaurant in front, but it was so tough and stringy we didn’t bother ordering a full meal.

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The men’s room floor made my husband smile and snap a picture, but that’s not reason enough to ever visit this brewery again.

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Passing through downtown Bangor…

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We grabbed a quick sandwich and took the back roads home.

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😊

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Go for the beer, stay for the cocktails.

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On a beautiful autumn day we went beer hopping.

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Heading north to Brewer…

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To visit a brewery about which we’d heard good things.

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The space is large and funky…

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With windows behind the bar that look directly into the brewery.

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After sampling a few beers… the current tap selection was too IPA heavy for my taste… I snagged the cocktail list, and Oh. My. God!

I set to work.

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A true artisan was at work here and luckily he was our bartender.

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I started with the Black Seeds which was a fabulous twist on a margarita.

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We could have sat outside on the patio… but it was too far away from the cocktails.

😉

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The menu had a sense of humor.

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And the Truffle Pig pizza was amazing.

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But my second (and yes, okay… my third) drink was a masterpiece.

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Lilith’s Last Kiss was a complex, multi layered flavor extravaganza that I would happily drive the hour and a half for again.

👍

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Random rambling.

10 Comments

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten, caught mid -stalk.

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It’s been an unusually wet summer and while this time of year usually finds our lawn dry and crunchy, the grass is verdant green.

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Which shows off the rainbows to perfection.

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I don’t care if it tastes good, the can alone would make me try it.

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Work has resumed on the view busting greenhouses across the street.

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Can’t say I’m in a hurry for that to be erected.

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I could never make decent shadow figures when I was young, but I found this recently and wanted to share. The spider looks like a scorpion and the puppy resembles a hippo but they’re still better than I ever managed.

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Mr. Hawk is back and has discovered a power line perch.

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Whether that’s a very brave or very stupid dove has yet to be determined.

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Another rainbow.

😊

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There’s nothing worse than dishwater beer.

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I’m always up for trying a new brewery so we headed north to Auburn.

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Hop water?

No thank you.

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I suppose the empty tasting room should have been our first clue…

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But the beer list was interesting and we tried a flight.

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Of which we liked exactly none.

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With a giant cat sticker watching us, we tried two more…

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Sadly with the same result.

The beer was so flat, tasteless and uninteresting I ordered a watermelon gimlet instead.

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And though we won’t be back anytime soon for beer, they did make a delicious sandwich.

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Turkey and melted Brie, spinach and red onion, with rosemary and fig aioli on grilled ciabatta.

That alone was worth the visit.

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Random ramblings..

52 Comments

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As we were driving back from the hardware store where we purchased yet more materials for the front porch, we saw this on someone’s front lawn and the husband was so enamored… he pulled into their driveway for a picture.

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Bizarre yet wonderful.

Also on the way home?

He stopped for a pie.

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The husband loves pie. And even after complaining vociferously about the growing cost of our renovation projects… purchased a blueberry for $30.

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Yes.

I completely believe that’s real natural beauty.

🥴

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Sounds like my kind of beer.

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I’d never seen this before and thought it was clever.

My husband scoffed and said, “That’s a swamp cooler. Where have you been?”

Not in a swamp apparently.

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The husband’s truck is in the shop… again. He loves that old relic but I swear it spends as much time at the repair shop as it does on the road. Thankfully our mechanic is an old friend and treats us right.

He also has a sense of humor.

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😉

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A lakes region road trip.

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When the thermometer is reading temperatures this high?

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You ditch yard work and take a road trip west.

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To the lakes region, over the Naples causeway.

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Through Bridgton…

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Past ski slopes that look a little strange in the summer.

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To a premier pub in Lovell, Maine.

Any similarities between my husband and the pub sign mascot are purely coincidental.

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Ebenezer’s is famous for its extensive beer menu and hand blown glass taps.

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It also has a buzzard on the bar.

It’s hard to top that.

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They’ve won multiple awards and though they’re small and off the beaten path… those in the know, know.

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Belgians.

A white for the husband, a geuze boon for moi.

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I love their vintage signs.

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And their coconut shrimp with sweet Thai chili sauce.

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Some signs are prophetic.

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Good beer, beautiful lakes.

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A perfect summer day.

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